


Heavy Lies the Crown

by WritingToBeauty



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Touch, Touch-Starved, lonely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2020-11-09 10:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20851634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingToBeauty/pseuds/WritingToBeauty
Summary: The girl under the floor becomes the Red Queen under the ground. Octavia struggles with the leadership of Wonkru while her memories of living under the floor resurface during her time in the bunker. The broken girl inside of her turns to Niylah for comfort, but Blodreina screams inside her, begging for Octavia to suffer.





	1. Chapter 1

Like a menacing thunder cloud threatening to strike, Octavia’s hovering presence rested on the throne, overlooking the bunker’s pit. As her darkened gaze pointed straight at the fighters below, she played with a knife that gleamed with the soft blaze which crept from the torches–or maybe her eyes.

  
She held her pointer finger at the tip of the blade. Each time a fighter got knocked down, she’d press the knife into the pad of her finger, letting the blood trickle down her finger no more than an inch before she pulled away. She didn’t sympathize with the fighters, no.

Disappointed? Yes.

  
She pitied them.

  
_Weak_.

  
Often enough, the pit faced _Skaikru_ against _Trikru-_–innovation and resourcefulness against pure, brute strength. Sometimes she couldn’t help but see their labels encircle them like smoke, but she always saw herself wholly apart from each group.

  
_Wonkru_.

  
That’s who she was. Neither of the sky nor of the ground. Too _Skaikru_ for _Trikru_. Too _Trikru_ for _Skaikru._

  
*CLACK*

  
The smack of dead weight on the concrete bunker floor. Another fallen warrior.

  
Octavia scoffed. She grabbed the hilt of her knife and stabbed the tip into the iron armrest already dented with disappointment. She stood up and lazily leaned over the railing. Every scarred, dirty face looked up expectantly at their queen. The bruised and bloodied warrior left standing foamed at the mouth, and his limbs twitched impatiently. Octavia scanned him, then gave an almost indistinguishable nod. Roaring cheers boomeranged against the cold, steel walls, vibrating through every hungry body. Followed by two of her guards and Gaia, Octavia walked across the ramp to her quarters as her people burst through the fighting ring and scavenged the still warm body.

  
The guards settled into their post by the door to their queen’s quarters. Octavia crossed the threshold, then quickly shut the door behind her, Gaia’s face inches away. Gaia looked down, careful not to let the guards see the hurt in her eyes, then stood post with them, all with their backs to the wall.

  
Octavia looked at the room she had slept in, or tried to sleep in, for the last two years. To the left, a cold, steel desk with inkless pens and useless maps. The door to her dark, empty washroom. In the middle, a bed. Big enough for two. For Bloodreina, and for the girl under the floor. Always together. Always alone. On the right, there was a rug on the floor for meditation, so the warrior’s mind could be just a strong as the body. Next to the rug, The Deeds of the Divine Augustus.

  
Octavia looked at her bed, and her body started to ache. Her skin started to feel cold. She quickly removed the hooks of the vermilion cape that draped around her shoulders and set on the hooks by the door. She sat down cross-legged on the rug and closed her eyes. From here, she couldn’t hear the desperate voices of her people. She couldn’t feel their hungry eyes or see their cold, pale skin. In her quarters, she was more peacefully alone.

  
At the end of the day, or at least what they had decided would be the end of a day, the people of the bunker returned to their own quarters. Indra knocked on the door to let Octavia know that it was time to make rounds. Octavia rose and clipped on her vermilion cape. She glanced once more at the bed and felt that empty ache radiate through her chest.

  
Indra and the two guards followed Octavia as she knocked at sleeping quarters. During the first few weeks living in the bunker, those who were formally _Skaikru_ had segregated themselves in select quarters; _Trikru_ did the same. When Octavia was made aware of growing dissent between people who were all now one clan, she decided to check the quarters and enforce integration—if she needed to.  
Octavia opened the doors to each sleeping area, scanning the room for faces. When she approved of the population, she nodded. “Omon gon oson.”

  
“_Omon gon oson_,” the people returned.

  
She approached the last sleeping quarter and peered into the darkness. All of the beds were empty. They’d lost too many people to fill them. There was nothing but dust.

  
The door creaked as Octavia began to close it, but out of the darkness came a faint, gentle, “Omon gon oson.” She looked back into the darkness but saw nothing. She held her hand behind her, and Indra placed a flashlight in her palm. Octavia shined a light on every bed until she saw dirty, blonde hair resting on a lower bunk.

  
“Niylah?” she almost whispered.

  
“_Omon gon oson,_” Niylah turned toward the door and repeated the phrase, thinking her _Blodreina_ had not heard her.

  
“Are you alone in here?” Octavia asked.

  
“Yes.” Niylah spoke so softly that Octavia could practically see the sounds dance through the darkness.

  
“Why?”

  
Niylah simply sighed in response. Octavia looked at the woman, eager to hear her reasons, or maybe just her voice. Did Niylah want to be alone for the same reason Octavia wanted to be alone? Could they possibly share in their suffering? Octavia wanted to know. But she’d never ask, no. _Blodreina_ does not ask. So she walks back out into the hallway and finishes her rounds. But the view of Niylah on that bed, in the darkness, so vulnerable, almost sad, remained at the forefront of every one of Octavia’s thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia can't sleep and is constantly thinking of Niylah alone in one of the bunker rooms. She knows their loneliness is different, but decides to reach out in hopes that their different problems have the same solution.

A few days later, Octavia laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling. The flicker of the candles on the nightstands danced around every uneven speck of her concrete sky. Overlaid on the surface was Niylah’s golden hair cascading lifelessly down her back. Octavia reached for the ends of her own hair and combed through them slowly. She closed her eyes and moved her fingers softly from her scalp to the ends of her hair. She shut her eyes tight and her face contorted in pain. It wasn’t the same. Her hands were not Lincoln’s hands.

  
She turned to her side and crossed her arms over her so that she held herself. Her grip tightened until her nails dug into her arms and she grimaced again. Her eyes began to water, so she sat up and stopped the tears with her palms pressed against her eyelids. When she opened her eyes, she still saw the image of Niylah. Alone. In that bed. There was something different about Niylah’s loneliness. It came with different burdens. But Octavia believed that both their loneliness could be alleviated in the same way.

  
With only her sword and dagger to protect her, Octavia exited her quarters, telling the guards on post to stay where they were.

“I want to make some rounds on my own. While it’s quiet.”

“But _Blodreina_—,” the guard began to protest. To Octavia, it sounded like begging, and it put a bitter taste in her mouth.

  
_Pathetic_.

  
Her eyes darkened with pity, and her hand moved toward the hilt of her dagger. Immediately, the guard’s back straightened, and his gaze lifted. Octavia made eye contact with the second guard, who was more fearful and silently straightened.

  
Octavia walked the cold, quiet halls of the bunker. Her people were in their beds, as they should be, but she knew many of them did not—could not sleep. Without sunlight, every minute felt like nightmare.

  
A small part of her was glad that those from the Ark now felt just a bit of what she felt all her life. She thought about Kane and smirked, but she quickly grimaced when she thought of Abby. Stuck. Underground.

_Together_.

  
It wasn’t the same. Sure, she had Bellamy, but she also had the constant fear of being discovered. The intense jealousy of her brother walking freely out the door. The disgusting shame of hearing the Ark guard’s moans as her mother paid so often for her existence. Octavia let out an angry breath through her nose.

  
No. Not the same.

  
In her mind, the image of her mother being floated flickered in and out. Clutching her brother’s hand. Her mother’s hair messy about her where the guard had pushed and pulled her head. She even saw her own confused, little face pleading to Chancellor Jaha before he opened the outer doors. If only he had lived long enough to feel the pain that formed her essence.

  
Octavia’s hands balled into fists, and her nails dug into her palms as she continued walking down the hall. She approached a door and held her outstretched hand an inch away from it, afraid to feel the metal door against her fingertips. What if Niylah wasn’t in there anymore? What if she decided that the loneliness was more than she could handle? What if she found someone to be lonely with? What if they were in there now together?

  
Octavia swallowed hard, feeling her pulse deep in her chest. She pressed her thumb down on the door handle and pushed it open slowly. As it opened, she scanned the room, waiting to see warm bodies in the bunk beds. But they were all empty. Except for one. Niylah laid in the same bed she was in when Octavia made her rounds a few days ago, but her back was not to the door this time. Niylah’s gaze was pointed at the bottom of the bed above her. When she saw the door open, she looked towards it. But when she saw _Blodreina_ outlined by the dim lighting of the hall, she propped herself up on her elbows.

  
“Are you alone?” Octavia asked.

  
Niylah’s eyebrows furrowed with concern. “Yes. What is it?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia reveals her hurt feelings to Niylah, saying that her existence under the ground feels like the pain she felt living under the floor. She's lonely, and she's trying not to be broken, because, after all, her people need her.

Octavia looked toward Niylah and leaned back to close the door. When Niylah heard the door click shut, she sat up and crossed her legs on the bed.

  
“Why are you alone in here?” Octavia asked while looking around at the empty beds to avoid Niylah’s eyes. If she looked into her eyes, she just might get scared. Of what, she didn’t exactly know, but she could feel it.

  
“Sometimes it’s just night to get- to think you can get away from it all.” God, Niylah’s voice. Like satin mixed with the molecules in the air. Octavia felt it wrap around and caress her. She walked up to the bed across from Niylah, taking time with her steps. As she sat, she gripped the edge of the flimsy mattress. The threat of her knees buckling no longer scared her, so she looked Niylah in the eye, and immediately she felt naked.

  
“Is everything okay, Octavia?”

  
_How bold of her._

  
Octavia chuckled and looked down at her knees. She sat silent for a moment, attempting to put words to that indescribable feeling. “How do you live with it?” She inhaled as if to continue, but then shook her head in defeat. Niylah remained silent, respecting the attempt to match sounds and letters with feelings every human struggled to process.

  
Octavia kept her head down, and her voice strained to speak. “I’m in pain, Niylah. I…” Her grasp on the edge of the mattress tightened. “I’ve felt this before, on the Ark. When I had to hide. Under the floor.” Niylah nodded, recalling the days before the Ark was destroyed, when Octavia had been sent to med bay and Abby had told her about her past.

  
“You’re lonely,” Niylah said. It was a statement, not a question, and it sounded like understanding.

“But it feels more than that. It’s… I’m not okay with it. It’s tearing me apart from the inside, and it hurts, and I can’t fight it back.” Octavia thought of the tattoos that trailed over her arms and down her shoulders, the epitomical symbol of her warrior’s journey. Niylah moved to sit next to Octavia, and Octavia tensed from only being able to see Niylah in her peripheral, still refusing to look at her directly, because if she did, all her seams would fall apart.

  
Niylah put a hand on Octavia’s forearm, and Octavia’s eyes shut tight. “What makes you think you have to fight it?” Niylah said.

  
“Because it’s all I can think about. And I can’t be thinking about my own pain when I have people who need me to lead them!” Octavia blinked her tear-filled eyes.

  
“A people will only ever be as strong as their leader, Octavia. You cannot ignore what you feel.” Niylah put one hand over the back of Octavia’s shoulder and held Octavia’s hand with the other. Slowly, she pressed her lips to Octavia’s cloth-covered shoulder. Octavia tensed and gritted her teeth as the tears began to escape down her dirty cheeks. 

  
“Shh. Here, lay down with me.” Niylah scooted back and nudged Octavia to lie down in front of her. Octavia lied down with her back to Niylah, and she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and grimaced, as if she could fight herself out of crying. Niylah softly shushed her and wrapped her arms around her queen, interlocking their fingers so that Octavia could let herself cry. As she cried, Octavia felt Niylah’s lips on the back of her head, the only place where the pain disappeared.

  
“I feel like I’m back where I started. Like nothing has changed. I’m just the girl under the floor. Again.” Octavia breathed out. “And Bellamy… he isn’t even here.”

  
“I’m here, _yuj gada_. I will be here to let you feel in safe arms. I promise.”

  
Octavia grasped Niylah’s fingers and they were interlocked with her own. Niylah held her tighter, pressing her lips against Octavia’s shoulder until she finally fell asleep. What a beautiful, broken body. Held together by her own strength and will, sometimes by another’s love-- the _Trikru_ man who had loved her so deeply.

  
Niylah knew her pain. She’d felt the loneliness. But this was different. Niylah had never been a leader, but she saw what the burden of leadership had done to Clarke. She understood the silent, comforting presence Clarke had needed. Niylah focused on the women breathing between her arms. Maybe not everyone can be a leader, but every leader certainly needs a someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this feels like an ending, but I will definitely be continuing this fic!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the insanely long hiatus. Almost done with grad school and I got promoted at work.

Octavia's brow furrowed in her sleep as she ran through an icy forest in her dreams. She ran toward a pocket of light within the forest, holding herself up at a tree, letting the sun's heat fill her body. A sharp sound pierced the air near her ear. An arrow had struck the tree, so she ran into the shade of the forest again where she felt more comfortable than she wanted to. She did not want the cold, dead, silent peace; she wanted light. Another pocket appeared in the distance, but as she ran and crossed its threshold, another arrow pierced the air, this time from the opposite direction. She skidded against the forest floor, pushing off the ground with her hands as she returned the way she came. But every time she reached the light, an arrow would send her running back into the dark. It was only a matter of time before--

"Octavia," Niylah nudged her shoulder. Octavia's eyes darted open and her muscles were tense. "Octavia, are you okay?" Niylah's voice was sweet with innocence and concern. Octavia threw her legs over the bed and sat on its edge. She gripped the edge of the bed tight and then wiped the sweat off her forehead.

"Yeah, just a bad dream. How long have I been asleep?"

"A few hours, I think." Octavia swallowed hard and stood.

"I need to get back to my quarters." Niylah looked at her with hurt in her eyes, but she nodded in understanding. As she watched Octavia exit the dark room and close the door behind her, the echo in the empty space revealed a longing she didn't want to admit existed.

Octavia quietly climbed the steps to her quarters, and Indra was pacing outside the door. When Indra heard her queen approaching, she looked at her but then quickly bowed her head.

"_Blodreina_," Indra said. "The guards said you had left. It's the middle of the- I-"

"It's a sealed bunker, Indra. Calm down. Where am I going to go?" Octavia responded as she opened her door, but before she closed it behind her she paused and looked carefully at Indra and the two guards by her door. "Tomorrow evening after curfew, have Niylah brought to my quarters."

"Yes, _Blodreina_." Indra nodded. Octavia closed the door behind her, removed her shoes, then settled onto her bed with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Soon, curfew would lift and the bunker's sun lamps would turn on to simulate daytime. She felt somewhat... relaxed. Her eyes closed and she found herself fixed once again on Niylah's hair draping down her back until, at last, Octavia drifted into sleep.

* * *

Octavia woke to the sound of Indra's knock on the door. It was time to make her morning rounds, to show face to her people. In the cafeteria, Kane and Abby were sitting next to each other, staring at their algae as they stirred it with their spoons. Octavia’s eyes lingered on them and her jaw clenched. Abby inched closer to Kane and rested her head on his shoulders. Octavia quickly turned away as something ached in her chest. She continued walking through the cafeteria, nodding at the respectful “_Blodreina”_’s from her people. As she approached the exit of the cafeteria, she ran into Miller, who was carrying two trays of algae. Octavia gave him a look.

“Jackson’s been working all night with the latest suicide attempts,” he said. Octavia couldn’t tell if he was telling her this information or if he was asking for permission.

“I’m heading to med bay anyways. I’ll go with you,” she said.

Octavia and Miller walked down the hall together, passing a small crowd of loiterers with nothing better to do, their hope dwindling by the day. When the pair passed the crowd, Jackson cleared his throat.

“Indra said you left your quarters last night,” Miller said.

“Did she,” Octavia monotoned and Miller waited before responding.

“Someone from Skaikru-” she shot him a look. “Someone said they saw you almost before daylight hour leaving the empty room that- that Niylah is sleeping in.” Octavia did not respond. They continued to step in rhythm. When they could see med bay, Miller held his elbow out to gently stop her.

“Octavia, you don’t have to do all of this alone. Being a leader is not just a one-person job. You are human. Let someone in,” he looked at Jackson through the window in the med bay door. “I know it feels dangerous, and maybe it is. But it’s worth it. And don’t even think about whether you deserve it or not. I don’t think anyone really deserves it.” Jackson saw Miller then the tray of algae through the window and smiled. Miller gave a soft nudge to Octavia’s elbow, then went into med bay. Through the window, Octavia saw him greet Jackson with a kiss on the cheek, then they ate their algae together in a corner away from patients. Jackson looked like he was telling some sort of story or giving a fascinating explanation about something scientific, and Octavia couldn’t help but study Miller as he listened enthusiastically. She turned from the med bay and continued with the rest of her _Blodreina_ duties for the day. Tonight would be different.


End file.
